I believe homework is valuable because it reinforces what is learned at school. It is not reasonable to expect that the teacher should be solely responsible for teaching and reinforcement only at school. This is why private school children are outperforming children in public schools where you have a system in place that doesn't work. My son does have a lousy reading teacher though. She did not want to help me at all. I was shocked when I couldn't get a resource or study guide out of her when my son was bringing home Cs in reading. He has NEVER made a C in Reading in his academic years when he was in private. I knew what the problem was and it seems as though she didn't want to help me until I made a complaint to the principal. Now the information is coming, but she waits until a day or two to provide a study sheet on her teacher web page (she developed a webpage after the complaint). It is not even a study sheet, but a copy of her notes on the board. Usually when you announce a test, a test is being given because the teacher worked on the concept a week before. It doesn't work that way with her. She works on a concept the day or two before the test then test the students to see if they memorized what she told them. This is not teaching, this is bs. I thought it was a big mistake for the school to place an intern in my son's reading teacher's class. You have one lousy teacher training an intern. This is pretty bad. I happened onto facebook to discovered my son's reading teacher was on it. She said and I quote, If this teaching thing doesn't work out, I want to become a massage therapist or storm chaser". Honey go for and do us all a favor.

Wait I found the link to a few textbooks. http://www.loyolapress.com/voyages-in-english-2011-grammar-and-writing-view-samples.htm

I purchased the textbook. I do not have the link.

Has anyone used this English textbook? What do you think about it? It really goes into depth with for example, different types of nouns, common, proper, singular, plural, possessive, irregular possessive, collective nouns, nouns as subjects, and words used as nouns and verbs. Another chapter discusses pronouns, subject pronouns, object pronouns. possessive, possessive adjectives, agreement of pronouns and verbs, I amd Me and compund subject and object. Now we know public school doesn't cover all of this stuff.

I just wanted to add that his Writing/Social Studies teacher told me he wasn't taught everything he needed to know to do well on the assessments.

I don't know the answer to your question. The teacher stated that she normally teaches one or two concepts at a time and because he was exposed to 8 different math concepts on this assessment this is something he wasn't use to. This is not true because for two years at a private school they were using Everyday Math. I have noticed at this particular school the students are behind on what the teacher is teaching. They just started fractions when other campuses are finishing up with that. I believe he wasn't fully prepared to take this assessment because she didn't cover all the concepts he needed to know. Of course she will not tell me this. We are moving out of the district next year, so I am trying to keep up with what they are doing in another district. It seems depending on where you go, each public school is district. How they do things depends on the income of the community and parent response.

Does anyone know about what a district assessment measures? My son took a district assessment for Math, Science, and Social Studies at his public school in 3rd grade. Parents aren't told when the assessments are given and are not informed what the results are for their student. You have to ask if you happen to find out somehow. My son missed the honor roll by 3 points in Reading the first quarter then he made the honor roll in second quarter. He continues to earn As and Bs in his subject. Almost the entire third grade class made the honor last quarter. What I find strange is he only responded to 50% of the questions correctly on his Math and Social Studies district assessment. This is a new school that has been open for 3 years and many of the teachers do not have alot of experience, so I am wondering if he is benefiting from his education at all at this school. When he took the Iowa Basic Skills Test at the beginning of the school year in 3rd grade his scores looked really good. So I don't understand what is going on here. Shouldn't the teacher offer some sort of tutoring. I am in contact with her to find out what is going on, but wanted some feedback from you all, who may have more knowledge about this. He has to take a Math TAKS in April, so I don't understand why I wasn't told about his assessment scores.

I complained to the principal at my son's public school that there is too little homework and many times what is learned in school is not reinforced through homework. My son who is a 3rd grader only received 2 Reading homework assignments per week and 2 math worksheets per week. He did really poorly on a Social Studies test. No study guide was sent home for me to help him study. The Social Studies book did not cover what was being taught, so he did poorly. When I asked the teacher if she could provide me with a resource to help him study for his tests, she told me there should be notes in his notebook that he could study. On another occasion she told the class that they didn't have to do notetaking. They could if they wanted to. After going back and forth with the teacher about there was barely anything intelligible in the notebook to use as a resource to help my son study and his comment about the teacher not allowing the students to take notes sometimes, I called for a meeting with the principal. I felt that I was getting the run around from his Reading teacher. This was a kid in a previous private school with a rigorous program who was getting As and Bs, but now doing poorly in Reading and Social Studies. My son is above average in Reading on the Iowa Basic Skills test. He is also an A B student in Science and Math. It was obvious the problem was the Reading/Social Studies teacher. The principal asked me what I wanted as this is a new school (3 years old) and she wanted me as a former private school parents to have a good impression of her school. She also thought a child his age was not ready to be able to take notes and listen at the same time. I list some things that I wanted from her. As a result a teacher's blog was created where the Reading/Social Studies teacher put a study guide up there for some subjects not all. As a result of my complaint and the principal talk with the teacher an effort was made to help me, so I could help my son. My son made the honor roll this semester, but I feel the teacher is regressing. She told me there would be a test on adverbs this Friday. No homework was sent home to reinforce what was learned in class. She did not discuss adverbs until Thursday and the test is on Friday. I did practice exercises with my son 3 days before the test. I couldn't believe that she wrote two sentences about what adverbs were with a list of words then stated this is the test. Are you kidding me! My son said he didn't know what she was talking about, but understood from practicing recognizing an adverb, recognizing if the adverb is telling how, when or where he understood. Is this real teaching? My son had anxiety about the test, but I assured him he will do fine if he applies what he learned in the test. My son described the teacher of not being happy and she always has a bored face. I really feel people need to get out of this profession if they don't have a vested interest in helping/educating children. I don't want my child to pay the price for this. Anyway, I will play this one by ear to see how he does before I complain again. I have decided we will finish this year out and not return to this school next year. Sometimes I wonder if I am the only one going through this. My in-laws seem to believe that the reason why students do not do well is because the parents are not involved or it is a common problem in the inner city. I don't live in the inner city and I am the most involved parent in my son's education. We have ineffective teachers in the suburbs too. I really feel as though if you are not in a wealthy neighborhood, you don't get the best teachers and resources are limited.

The teachers teach in teams of 2 at my son's public school. One teacher teaches Reading and Social Studies. The other teacher teaches Math and Science. Students in both homerooms have Reading and Social Studies or Math and Science at different times.

Does your student have his/her own textbook for each subject (Reading, Math, Vocabulary, English, Science, and Social Studies)? There isn't a Reading textbook in my son's class, no vocabulary book, the mathbook is shared among 40 students (when one homeroom is in reading, the other homeroom is in math class), Science book is shared among 40 students as well as the Social Studies book which is barely used. There isn't an English textbook. English is something that is not worked on as often, neither is phonics. I just have to get my son back in private school for 5th grade.

When did Georgia adopt the national standards? I read only 35 states did. Georgia, Texas, Alabama, and Tennessee to name a few southern states did not.

My son is in 3rd grade. His school does not teach cursive handwriting at all (yet it is 1% of his grade) although other schools in the district are doing it. This campus seems to be more focused on Reading and Math TAKS coming up in April as well as preparing them for the writing test in 4th grade. Texas is getting rid of TAKS and using something called STAARS, which is suppose to be more rigorous, but it is the same garbage like TAKS. What state do you live in? By the way I purchased a daily cursive handwriting book. My son does a lesson in it 5 out of 7 days a week.

Tracy R, Private schools don't teach to the state's test, but they teach to their own. I realize writing was not emphasized at all in the catholic elementary program because correct if I am wrong, there is no writing test on the Iowa Basic Skills test. This is a skill that children need for college. Students should be able to express an independent thought on paper instead of filling out worksheets most of the time. This concerned me when he was in private. Now that he is doing more of it now, he is comfortable with it and the enthusiasm is there.

Tracy R. My son attended a St. Thomas Catholic school too and it is huge. It was a cash cow. There was a big issue with bullying and harassment of kids who were easy targets. Students could get away with it because there were no real consequences. The administrators wanted to keep the money coming in, so they didn't do much about it. They didn't want to get rid of any students. It was a very unchristian like environment. Very shocking. We had to move. I realized that there wasn't much teaching happening in the classroom that is why students were given so much homework. Every homework assignment was what was presented in class and would be on the test. So basically parents were responsible for reinforcing what was covered or not covered. And this information would be on the test. Study guides were also provided. This is how I became a home afterschooler. Homework assignments, lessons for the day, and tests were all graded and entered into the report card, so it was not difficult for your child to not do well unless you were not involved. This was not a good environment for my son. He was exhausted and stressed out. Now we are at a public school where there are no issues with bullying, no yelling or screaming, but the teachers provide very little homework with no resources to reinforce what is going on in the class. The teachers were brushing me off when I ask about this, so I met with the principal to complain. Now I am seeing study guides here or there trickling in and actually a little bit of homework that is actually reinforcing some of the concepts he is learning in class. It seems like these teachers don't really care if the students get it or not. I feel like I am fighting a war here to make sure my child is getting a good education. It would be great if I could have found a very small private school in my community, but with the building of mastered planned community it seems private schools are popping up with an interest in money and not concerned about providing a quality education. This is what I am up against. As for the public schools they are only interested in the students being able to pass the TAKS.

I am from back east and I don't think the private schools are any better than public schools in Texas. The private schools give lots of homework, but parents have to practically afterschool because there isn't much teaching going on. It is just teachers giving out lots of homework. Parents think this is good. Good is associated with lots of homework. Although the Science and Social Studies is week in public school at the elementary level, my son is learning more in Reading and writing then he did in private. Private schools teach to their own test too. And they try to take credit for high test scores which no school is responsible for that. The test scores are not exactly right. It is not an exact science. It just tells you how your child is doing for that day.